A Quote by Lord Acton

Government by idea tends to take in everything, to make the whole of society obedient to the idea. Spaces not so governed are unconquered, beyond the border, unconverted, a future danger.

Lord Acton

Quote Topics

Beyond Border Danger Everything Future Governed Government Idea Make Obedient Society Spaces Take Tends Whole

Quote Author

Lord Acton
January 10, 1834 - June 19, 1902

The transfer is a monumental occasion as the Iraqi people take control of their government and their future and forge ahead with creating a society governed by the tenets of life, liberty and freedom.

Jim Gerlach

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

Swami Vivekananda

The idea of man as the dominant mammal of the earth whose whole behaviour tends to be dominated by his own desire for dominance gripped me. It seemed to explain almost everything, and I applied it to everything.

Frank Macfarlane Burnet

England was killed by an idea: the idea that the weak, indolent and profligate must be supported by the strong, industrious, and frugal – to the degree that tax-consumers will have a living standard comparable to that of taxpayers; the idea that government exists for the purpose of plundering those who work to give the product of their labor to those who do not work. The economic and social cannibalism produced by this communist-socialist idea will destroy any society which adopts it and clings to it as a basic principle – ANY society.

Dan Smoot

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

William J. Brennan

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life. Think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other thought. This is the way to success.

Jaya Prada

The idea ... that collective society should take hold of Evil and set it down hard in its chair and make it cry seems to many of us absolutely sound. Of course, we feel that it is not for us, those who love righteousness, to jump on the necks of the wicked. We prefer to have it attended to in a more dignified, impersonal way by Society as a whole.

Gerald Stanley Lee

There's a project that I started at HHS called the Health Data Initiative. The whole idea was to take a page from what the government had done to make weather data and GPS available back in the day.

Todd Park

For that, one has to drop all the masks, one has to risk many things, particularly respectability. That is a bribe by the society. It will give you a Nobel prize and it will give you many honours; it will do everything to make you feel great, if you can fulfil one condition: if you are obedient, obedient like a robot, then all respect is for you. Then the society will make you a great hero, but there will be no grace, no beauty, no freedom, no truth, no being; you have committed a real suicide.

Rajneesh

What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance.

Barbara Jordan

Those that only take a nibble here and a nibble there will never attain anything ... Those who really want to be yogis must give up, once and for all, this nibbling at things. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea.

Swami Vivekananda

The Great Truth is that women in our society constitute one of the most privileged and powerful classes of human beings on earth. The challenge is to make women believe in their power. "Woman as victim" is an idea whose time has passed. The idea of woman as a survivor and a success must take its place.

Wendy McElroy

The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.

P. J. O'Rourke

Now, ideas are the raw material of progress. Everything first takes shape in the form of an idea. But an idea itself is worth nothing. An idea, like a machine, must have power applied to it before it can accomplish anything. The men who have won fame and fortune through having an idea are those who devoted every ounce of their strength and every dollar they could muster to putting it into operation. Ford had a big idea, but he had to sweat and suffer and sacrifice to make it work.

B. C. Forbes

I will raise my voice as long as God gives me sound or ability, against this Communistic idea that the Government will take care of us all, and everything belongs to the government. It is wrong!